UNITED STATES—Americans are rightly fed up with bailouts and crooked CEO’s stealing from the shareholders, leaving us holding the bag. Both the previous administration and the current administration both were too busy trying to pretend as if they knew how to solve the credit crisis, that instead of making sure greedy executives who were handed taxpayers funds  were going to use it correctly, they failed to see the potential of these funds being turned over as bonuses.  What is amazing in American history is, for decades if not centuries, the American businessman was much more respected than politicians and in the last decade more so than the media. How they took the public’s trust and admiration and with 20 years of greed and manipulation destroyed their once revered status in American’s lives is beyond comprehension.

But to see the President of the United States and the Congress screaming on and on about bonuses paid to wealthy CEO’s who failed at their jobs is downright silly. Many of whom who are yelling the loudest were the quickest to take campaign donations from the various fat cats at AIG and Bank of America and the auto industry as well. Now we are to believe that Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and others have our best interests at heart? Haven’t the business and Wall Street executives only taken ideas from our own politicians’ playbook for the past decades? Take from the public and only give back a little if caught and if getting yelled at?

This has been the major reason why I have stated consistently that young people do not need role models that are in the “Ivory Tower.” They need to look at their own parents, relatives and neighbors, who are hard working citizens who pay their taxes, ask for no handouts and seem to be the people forgotten in the era of greed and destruction. Who knows what this administration intends to do with the economic mess it inherited. So far this team hasn’t done much better than the last. Amazing how our Founding Fathers were such brilliant men, but with the exception of a handful of political leaders in the last century, we’ve fallen short on all the assets once abundant in American leadership in business and in politics.

It seems the world is spinning out of control and each day another economic shoe drops, another foreign threat emerges. It’s time Americans stop sitting back and looking up at our politicians as people who are either capable of, or interested in, making our nation and the world a better place. It’s time for us to take back our power and we have to start by teaching our children ourselves, remembering that our government has several important responsibilities but none include teaching our children right from wrong. We now live in a society where young children are taught to distrust the police, to not look up to the nation’s most successful businessmen and where politicians lie and don’t put the country first. All of these people have failed us, but more importantly, they have failed themselves.

Since we know real Americans face no real hope of getting much needed help from the nation’s most powerful and the wealthy, it’s time to get back to the basics with our children and to show them that parents are their heroes. Lets get back to where it belongs. At home.

But we can all be proud of our greatest American heroes. Those who fight in our wars and are stationed throughout the world making America and the world a safer and better place. Please remember to thank our soldiers whenever you see one in a restaurant, an airport or in a supermarket. Thank them for their service to the nation and for making the world a better place.

-